Long-overdue Species

[JVM]

@DaLilFishie I've actually seen them in an exhibit replicating a coral reef, at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. Honestly, this discussion is a tad amusing for an extremely aquarium-specific nerd like me, as the overabundance of sand tigers and sandbar sharks as the only large free-swimming (i.e. non-nurse or zebra) sharks exhibited in a particular aquarium drives me kind of loopy sometimes lol. I do love them as much as any other shark, but quite frankly 30 holders in the US seems like enough for me. I honestly wish that newer facilities with no long-term establishment of the species' care would try something different from the start or phase them out like Georgia recently did, in favor of lesser-studied species that could also use those resources and potentially be aided by breeding programs.

I mean, assuming you know more than me, sure definitely, but it's always felt like every large shark not in captivity already I read about is said to be impossible to keep for one reason or another, which largely gave me somewhat an impression that large sharks are inherently difficult to keep with exception?

My best educated guess would be that it's currently either a particularly large sand tiger, of which I've seen a few (SeaWorld San Diego used to have one that was pretty easily 9-10 feet at my best estimate), or quite possibly one that you guys might not expect, that being...a lemon shark! They can actually get really big, 12.1 feet at maximum, and Citrus, also of SeaWorld San Diego, is a particularly massive example who's I believe around 10 feet long as of now. I do know that Georgia Aquarium's large female tiger shark was 9 feet long when I dove with her in 2022, and they also have had a great hammerhead in the past that was approaching 11 feet per a source I had there, but that individual passed away prior to their reacquisition of the species in 2020. I will say, either that tiger at Georgia or another at a different facility will almost certainly take the crown someday soon, given that they have a near 20-foot maximum size that would be larger than any other regularly exhibited species. They'd only really be limited by the size of their tank and the amount that they're fed - and GA's tank is 1 million gallons. Great hammerheads can also approach that length but it's rarer.

Thank you so much, this is exactly the kind of intensive answer I was looking for.

 

[Local_Shark]

Your comment about Sandbars being too common is interesting to me, they're not terribly common in Australian aquariums (not awfully rare either, there are a few around, but not enough that I would consider them commonly kept).

Yeah, it’s funny, many aquariums that have sand tigers here also have sandbars, and they’re also just extremely common as the biggest shark in the tank of many midsize aquaria. I have personally logged 13 aquaria that have them currently, and there’s many other holders I’ve not been to (Texas State, New York, Virginia, KC Zoo’s Sobela Ocean Aquarium, I think one of the NCs, at least one of the other Sea Lifes, and more). Monterey even briefly had one in the Open Sea around 2016, which I found somewhat hilarious given that they don’t live in California and aren’t pelagic. So yeah, nearly as common as sand tigers here in the States all told. I think in large part it’s because they not only are fairly numerous off of the East Coast of the United States for capture, but also have actually bred in captivity for a significantly longer time than sand tigers. Shark Reef in Vegas has had multiple successful births, and even transferred one to Aquarium of the Pacific in 2021 to bring the species back to its Shark Lagoon after a brief hiatus.

I mean, assuming you know more than me, sure definitely, but it's always felt like every large shark not in captivity already I read about is said to be impossible to keep for one reason or another, which largely gave me somewhat an impression that large sharks are inherently difficult to keep with exception?

You’re absolutely right, but also US aquaria are a little more hesitant than most are globally to even try other options that we know are fairly easy to keep. We’ve completely lost all our common (aka Atlantic) blacktip sharks with the passing of the last very old individual at Albuquerque’s ABQ BioPark Aquarium in the last year or so, and that species or its close relatives are fairly common in large European and East Asian aquaria. Tiger and bull sharks also can live upwards of 20 years in captivity, but only Georgia and Oklahoma respectively exhibit each of those species. They’re expensive to feed but not at all prohibitively so, OKA isn’t a massive/extremely profitable institution. It’s just something of an idiosyncratic “play it safe” vibe in US aquaria at the moment - though, it is understandable to some degree given that we’ve just recently managed to successfully breed sand tigers in captivity. That’s a major win that could help replenish the captive population without removing as many from the wild, and potentially result in releases back into the wild to an endangered population.

Thank you so much, this is exactly the kind of intensive answer I was looking for.

You’re quite welcome! Thank you for the question, I very much enjoy thinking about that exact type of thing haha.